What Makes Me Laugh

And yours can too! Momsrising.org created this fun, personalized video to celebrate your mom (and mine) this Mother’s Day. My favorite part is the guy with my mom’s name tattooed on his arm. Do check it out and celebrate one mother’s achievement with me. She deserves it!

My mom first introduced me to Sudoku on a plane trip back from Arizona last spring. She opened her book of puzzles and started speaking in slow, precise tones about the numbers one through nine. 

“So, you see, if you put a one here, and then there is one over there, another one should go there.”

I nodded my head slowly, to indicate comprehension, just in time for the woman sitting next to us to turn off her headphones and listen to what sounded like a mother explaining a relatively simple concept to her adult, learning-disabled daughter. 

“So,” my mom continues, “if a nine is in this row, and another nine is in this box, what number should go in this box?”

My mom’s tone said, “Even a kindergartner could understand this. It’s not hard, but for whatever reason my 30-year-old daughter thinks it’s hard so I’m going to be patient. ”

The woman in the next seat hears silence and then a long, “Uh,” and then a giggle from me, and then my mom trying to go more slowly and more patiently. “Ok, let’s try another one. A five is right here, and a two is in this square, so what number should go in this column?”

“Uh,” giggle, giggle. “Uh.”

I’m surprised the woman listening in didn’t just lean over at some point and yell, “It’s an eight, you idiot, an eight!”

Since my failed experiment with my mom, I have avoided a repeat performance with Sudoku (which I have a hard time even pronouncing right). That is, until our trip to Australia this spring, when I decided that I needed an endless variety of entertainment for twenty hours of flying and Sudoku might be another good distraction for what feels like your head being squeezed by a vise.

And now I’m hooked. Completely. Which is even more surprising since I’m not a puzzle girl. I don’t like crosswords because I inevitably have to cheat and look up some stupid random piece of trivia about Humphrey Bogart or what moon is flying around Neptune or how many trees are in a wind break. 

But the thing about Sudoku is that it is totally logical, and if you just put your brain through enough pain you’ll get it eventually. Yes, I have checked my answers, but most of the time I just have to stare at it cross-eyed long enough to get all of my strings of 1-9’s in the right order in the puzzle.

It’s perfect when you’re sick, but don’t want the emotional strain of a good book that wrings your insides out through your tear ducts. It’s great when you’re tired, but up at 3 a.m. for no good reason whatsoever and need something to do to cure your insomnia. And if the experts are to be believed, it’s supposed to be good for your health because it can help ward off dementia in your old age by building up brain cells.

So, thanks mom. I owe you a better Mother’s Day present this year than last year. Even if I wasn’t the best student you’ve ever taught sudoku.